On the first morning of my recent holiday with my daughter Imogen, I got up early, grabbed my camera and headed to the beach. I sat alone on the sand, waiting for the sun to rise and thought about freedom.
The last couple of years have been hard, haven’t they? In 2020, here in Australia, we endured a lockdown of several months. Last year, I was confined to home for almost 6 months.
Right back at the beginning, when we heard about the first lockdown, I couldn’t believe it: “How can our freedom be taken away like that? Surely no one can make us stay at home?” It seems they could.
I didn’t cope well with the lockdowns. While some people were having Zoom parties or immersing themselves in handicraft projects or losing weight and getting superfit or writing multiple books, I slowly fell apart.
Each day, my husband asked, “How’s your mental health?” It wasn’t good. He was worried. So was I. I felt guilty because I couldn’t be the strong Sue who always coped.
I wrote these words in a blog post that I never published:
Every few weeks, and sometimes sooner, I fall apart. I wake up and the day is grey and I’ve had enough. I’m fed up with this pandemic world. Actually, I’m more than fed up. A lot of the time, I’m not coping.
Most days, most members of my family go to work. And though the world isn’t quite as safe as it used to be, and we can’t do everything we’d like, my husband and kids are at least not sitting at home wondering when the world will return to normal. When will masks be a thing of the past? When will I be able to hug my friends? When will people stop taking a step back whenever I approach?
Not so long ago, I had a teary day. My husband Andy, wanting to help, asked me what was wrong. “So, I’m just not coping,” I finished as I came to the end of my list of complaints. “I’m lonely. I feel fragile.” I’m falling apart.
Andy was concerned about me. The next day when he arrived home from work, the first thing he said to me was, “How’s your mental health?”
“How’s my mental health? That’s a bit blunt, isn’t it? Couldn’t you just start by asking about my day?” I said. But maybe Andy is right: could I have a mental health problem? Maybe I’m not built for stress. It’s the way I was created. Well, that’s what passed through my mind before I decided that it’s normal to feel fragile right at the moment. Everyone has a lot to cope with. Our world has been turned upside down, and our support systems have been taken away. And there isn’t anything we can do about it. No one is listening.
While locked down, I pondered the effects of lack of freedom. I wondered: do kids who haven’t got much control over their lives suffer from mental health problems?
As parents, we might think we know what’s best for our kids. We could make them do what we want, even if they protest, because we believe it’s good for them. We could say, “One day you’ll thank me.” But what about now? While we’re controlling what our kids do, what they learn, and even what they think, will we damage their mental health?
It’s hard when no one is interested in what we have to say, when people make decisions that make no sense, when we’re told we have to obey and not complain or question because it’s good for us even if we can’t see it, when our needs are not taken into account, when no one cares how we’re feeling…
It’s hard when we have little control over our lives.
Sitting on the sand watching the sunrise, I felt like I’d stepped outside the normal world. The problems of the last couple of years rolled away. I felt free.
Isn’t that how everyone should feel, our kids included?
